Let's start with the surprising: A recent Kaiser Family Foundation study found that, on average, kids spend seven and a half hours a day plugged into some sort of electronic media (!!).
Now the bad news: Perhaps partly as a result of their online lifestyles, youth are increasingly being subjected to cyberbullying.
A 2009 Cyberbullying Research Center survey found that, among 2,000 middle schoolers polled, 42.9% had been victim of some form of cyberbullying in the last 30 days—usually through Facebook or texting. Add in high schoolers, and the center estimates that one third of Internet-using tweens and teens have been cyberbullied in the last year, with 22% of kids claiming they've perpetrated online harassment in the last month.
Most upsetting, though, is the fact cyberbullying is increasingly linked to suicide—most recently that of 15-year-old Phoebe Prince, who hanged herself in January, allegedly after being bullied at school and on Facebook.
While physical torment ends when the perpetrator leaves, cyberbullying can be done long distance, and relentlessly, from multiple platforms. It's also easy, private and requires no physical strength—just a phone or a computer and some nasty comments from one or more bullies.
But since cyberbullying usually occurs off campuses, many schools don't discipline students for it unless it causes on-campus trouble. And some even claim preventing cyberbullying is a violation of free speech.
So what should be done?
Maybe the secret is to prevent the hurt before it even begins. Parents can supervise and monitor their children's Internet usage and teach them how to be savvy and safe online. They can also talk to kids about the dangers and emotional pain caused by cyberbullying.
But maybe the most important thing parents can do is help children understand from an early age that their self-worth and identity do not come from what others say about them—good, bad or indifferent. Ultimately these things come from Christ—not what Johnny No-Name (and probably No-Clue) hisses or types.
Below is a list put together by Dr. Ergun Caner after his son committed suicide from online bullying. This list is a good teaching aid to talk to your teens about how to behave online.
1. If you can’t post something nice...ask yourself if you should post at all?
2. Don’t let momentary anger become a permanent post.
3. Remember, the people you want to attack has a family that feels their hurt.
4. Public people can have personal problems that the public doesn’t know. They may be closer to the edge than you know because you don’t know them. Stop before they drop.
5. God says “Vengeance is Mine” so it’s best to let God do best what He knows best to do.
6. Christians never have the right to be unkind, not even once. Mean posts about an individual multiple times is harassment.
7. Post above reproach. If in doubt, don’t. Be a building block and not a stumbling stone.
8. There are two sides to every story and the internet is not the best place to tell the difference between the two or the best place to settle the difference between the two.
9. It’s better not to post and let people think you’re a fool than to post and remove all doubt.
10. Nobody wins on the internet but lives and families can be lost because of it.
No comments:
Post a Comment